Audience members address legislators Harry Shiver, Trip Pittman and Steve McMillan during a public meeting on immigration. (Press-Register/Guy Busby)

ROBERTSDALE, Alabama -- Baldwin County legislators don't expect the state's immigration law to be overturned or changed in a major way, but area farmers, educators and others said local businesses and residents have been hit hard by the act.

At a public meeting Monday night sponsored by Baldwin County United and the Baldwin County Farmers Federation, Rep. Steve McMillan, R-Gulf Shores, said many problems with the immigration law stem from inaccurate perceptions, not the act.

“I’ve heard this law described as the most misinterpreted and misrepresented act and that’s correct,” McMillan said. Many people said the law promotes racial profiling, he said, even though the act contains five statements that prohibit racial profiling.

McMillan, Rep. Harry Shiver, R-Bay Minette, and Sen. Trip Pittman, R-Montrose, said small changes might be made in the law in the current session, but major modifications are not anticipated. McMillan said he also expected much of the law to withstand a federal court challenge scheduled to be heard Thursday.

“I’m going to predict that a good portion of the law will be upheld,” he said.

Most farmers and other residents who spoke at the meeting said the fear created by the law has hurt business in Baldwin County.

Donnie Waters, Farmers Federation president, said the law cost his nursery and many other farms many or most of their workers.

“We usually have about 15 employees. The day this thing came in, half of them left the next day,” Waters said. “We needed to load some trucks, so you can imagine what kind of situation that put us in.”

Waters said employers check papers, but don’t have resources to determine if the drivers licenses and Social Security numbers are authentic. “We’re not police people,” he said.

Norm Moore of Woerner Agribusiness said many legal workers also left out of fear that family members without documentation might be deported.

Farmers pay good wages, but the work is too hard for local residents, Bob Kleinschmidt, a sod farmer for 35 years, said.

“We’ve got Americans who won’t come out and work for $15 an hour,” he said. “We’ve got stuff that needs to be done and we can’t depend on Americans.”

Farmers are not the only employers hit by the law, Anna Wade of Spectrum Resorts, said. “Out of 30 workers, we lost 20,” she said. “I guess they got scared.”

Sam Dean, a Daphne contractor, said that if people are scared, it shows that they’re violating the law. He said the law is needed to protect businesses such as his, which have been undercut by people working for low wages.

“They’re taking food off the plate of my family. They’re taking money out of my pocket. They’re doing interior finishing work, what I specialize in, for what I charged in 1975,” Dean said. “What they’ve done is come in and watered down where we can’t be competitive anymore.”

Shiver said that since the law was passed, Alabama’s unemployment rate has dropped faster than the rate in surrounding states. He said that may be in part due to the act.

Pat Siano, chairwoman of the Baldwin County Democratic Party, told the three Republican lawmakers, however, that the change is due to President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package.